List of cooking techniques

Cooking is the art of preparing food for ingestion, commonly with the application of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environments, economics, cultural traditions, and trends. The way that cooking takes place also depends on the skill and type of training of an individual cook.

A "Culinary Pentagon" showing different techniques

This is an incomplete list of cooking techniques.

Cooking techniques

A
  • Acidulate – to use an acid (such as that found in citrus juice, vinegar, or wine) to prevent browning, alter flavour, or make an item safe for canning[1]
  • Al dente – to cook food (typically pasta) to the point where it is tender but not mushy
  • Amandine – a culinary term indicating a garnish of almonds. Dishes of this sort are usually cooked with butter and seasonings, then sprinkled with whole or flaked, toasted almonds.
  • Amylolytic process – used in the brewing of alcohol from grains
  • Anti-griddle – a kitchen appliance that flash freezes or semi-freezes foods placed on its chilled metal top.[2]
  • Aspic – food set in gelatin and shaped in a mold[3]
  • Au gratin – topping a dish with breadcrumbs or cheese then browning under a broiler[4]
  • Au jus – meat or sandwiches served with an unthickened sauce made from roast meat drippings
  • Au poivre – a food item (typically steak) that is crusted with ground black pepper prior to cooking

B
Cornish pasties being baked in an oven
The first step in blanching green beans
  • Backwoods cooking – a method of cooking without the use of utensils that commonly takes place in the backwoods, often in combination with wild or conventional camping
  • Baghaar – a cooking technique used in Pakistani cuisine and Indian cuisine in which cooking oil is heated and spices are added to fry. The oil is then added to a dish for flavoring.
  • Bain-marie - a method of cooking where a container of food is placed in or above boiling water in order to heat gradually or to keep warm[5]
  • Baking
  • Barding - wrapping meat in fat during roasting[6]
  • Barbecuing - slow cooking meat or fish with indirect heat and smoke.
  • Baste - to periodically pour liquid over food as it roasts[7]
  • Blanching – a food, usually a vegetable or fruit, is scalded in boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval, and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water (shocking or refreshing) to halt the cooking process.
  • Boiling
  • Braising – a combination-cooking method that uses both wet and dry heats: typically, the food is first seared at a high temperature, then finished in a covered pot at a lower temperature while sitting in some (variable) amount of liquid (which may also add flavor).
  • Bricolage - the preparation of a meal from whatever ingredients happen to be on hand.
  • Brine - to soak food in salted water
  • Broasting – a method of cooking chicken and other foods using a pressure fryer and condiments
  • Browning – the process of partially cooking the surface of meat to help remove excessive fat and to give the meat a brown color crust and flavor through various browning reactions

C
Hot liquid candy being poured into candy molds by a candymaker
Hamburgers cooking on a charbroiler
  • Candy making – the preparation of candies and sugar confections made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a syrup, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize
  • Caramelization – the browning of sugar, a process used extensively in cooking for the resulting nutty flavor and brown color
  • Carry over cooking – the phenomenon that food retains heat and continues to cook even after being removed from the source of heat.[8]
  • Casserole – food cooked and served in a casserole dish
  • Charbroiling – a commonly used cooking device consisting of a series of grates or ribs that can be heated using a variety of means, and is used in both residential and commercial applications for a variety of cooking operations
  • Cheesemaking – the craft of making cheese
  • Chiffonade - To cut leaves into long thin strips
  • Chinese cooking techniques – a set of methods and techniques traditionally used in Chinese cuisine.[9] The cooking techniques can either be grouped into ones that use a single cooking method or a combination of wet and dry cooking methods.
    • Red cooking – also called Chinese stewing, red stewing, red braising and flavour potting, is a slow braising Chinese cooking technique that imparts a red color to the prepared food.
    • Velveting - coating pieces of raw meat or poultry in a mixture of cornstarch and liquid prior to cooking
  • Clay pot cooking – a process of cooking food in a pot made from unglazed & natural clay
  • Coddling – heating food in water kept just below the boiling point.[10] Coddled egg may be prepared using this method.
  • Concasse – to rough chop any ingredient, usually vegetables. This term is particularly applied to tomatoes, where tomato concasse is a tomato that has been peeled, seeded (seeds and skins removed), and chopped to specified dimensions
  • Conche – a surface scraping mixer and agitator that evenly distributes cocoa butter within chocolate, and may act as a 'polisher' of the particles
  • Confit – a generic term for various kinds of food that have been cooked in grease, oil or sugar water (syrup)
  • Cooking with alcohol – many dishes incorporate alcoholic beverages into the food itself
  • Creaming – refers to several different culinary processes in baking, cooking and milk production
    • to combine ingredients (typically butter and sugar) into a smooth paste
    • to cook meat or vegetables in a thick dairy-based sauce
    • (creamed corn) to mix puréed corn kernels with whole corn kernels
    • (cream) the butterfat-heavy portion of whole milk that, due to its fat content, separates from the milk and rises to the top
  • Croquette - a small roll made of finely chopped meat and / or vegetables that is breaded and fried
  • Culinary triangle – a concept described by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss involving three types of cooking; these are boiling, roasting, and smoking, usually done to meat.
  • Curdling – the breaking of an emulsion or colloid into large parts of different composition through the physico-chemical processes of flocculation, creaming, and coalescence. Curdling is intentional and desirable in making cheese and tofu; unintentional and undesirable in making sauces and custards.
  • Cured fish - fish preserved by fermentation, pickling, smoking, or some combination of these techniques
  • Curing – various food preservation and flavoring processes of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite, or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking. The use of food dehydration was the earliest form of food curing.

D
A beef stew being cooked in a Dutch oven
  • Deep frying - to cook by submerging food in hot fat or oil
  • Deglazing
  • Degreasing
  • Dough sheeting – used by (industrial) bakeries and rolls out dough into a (consistent) dough sheet with a desired even dough thickness prior to baking
  • Dredging - to coat the exterior of food with a dry material (such as breadcrumbs) prior to cooking
  • Dry roasting
  • Drying – to preserve food by removing moisture, either by use of a modern food dehydrator or by the traditional method of allowing sun and wind to evaporate moisture
  • Dum pukht – or slow oven cooking, is a cooking technique associated with the Awadh region of India, in which meat and vegetables are cooked over a very low flame, generally in sealed containers.
  • Dutch oven cooking – A Dutch oven is well suited for long, slow cooking, such as in making roasts, stews, and casseroles. Virtually any recipe[11] that can be cooked in a conventional oven can be cooked in a Dutch oven. They are often used in outdoor cooking, such as when camping.

E
Engastration – The interior of a sausage-stuffed turducken
  • Earth oven – one of the most simple and long-used cooking structures. At its simplest, it is a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke, or steam food.
  • Egg wash – usually beaten eggs sometimes mixed with another liquid, usually water or milk, which is brushed onto the surface of a pastry before baking
  • Emulsify - to combine two liquids that have a natural tendency to separate (such as oil and vinegar) into one homogeneous mass
  • En papillote – food is put into a folded pouch or parcel and then baked
  • En vessie – a cooking method in which a meat or other dish is cooked in a (pig) bladder
  • Engastration – a method of cooking in which the cook stuffs the remains of one animal into another animal
  • Engine Cooking – cooking food from the excess heat of an internal combustion engine, typically the engine of a car or a truck
  • Escagraph - writing made out of food

F
Bananas Foster being flambéed

G
Yakitori being grilled

H

I
A method of indirect grilling involves plank cooking, such as the salmon fillets here
  • Indirect grilling
  • Infusion – the process of extracting chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time (a process often called steeping). A common example of an infusion is tea, and many herbal teas are prepared in the same way.

J

K
Bo Kho (beef stew)

L

M
Food cooking on a Mongolian barbecue griddle

N

O

P
Sausages being pan fried in a frying pan
A pig roast in Wittlich, Germany

R
Stock being reduced in a pan
  • Reconstitution - the process of assembling a palatable food product from processed sources (for example, adding water to concentrated juice or forming meat slurry into chicken nuggets)
  • Reduction
  • Rendering
  • Ricing
  • Rillettes
  • Roasting
  • Robatayaki
  • Rotisserie, also known as spit-roasting
  • Roux -equal quantities of flour and fat cooked together to a sandy texture used to make a thickening agent

S
A home smoker and racks with hot smoked Pacific halibut
Bao stir frying involves high heat combined with continuous tossing. This keeps juices from flowing out of the ingredients and keeps the food crispy.
Milk being steamed

T
A turkey fryer

V

W
  • Whip
  • Wok cooking – The wok is used in a significant amount of cooking methods.

Z
  • Zest - the colourful outer layer of citrus fruits, often scraped off and used as a flavouring ingredient

See also

References
  1. Montagné, Prosper (1977). The New Larousse Gastronomique. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. p. 3. ISBN 0-517-53137-2.
  2. The Creators of Top Chef (14 July 2010). How to Cook Like a Top Chef. Chronicle Books. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-8118-7486-1. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
  3. Montagné, Prosper (1977). The New Larousse Gastronomique. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. p. 55. ISBN 0-517-53137-2.
  4. Montagné, Prosper (1977). The New Larousse Gastronomique. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. p. 296. ISBN 0-517-53137-2.
  5. Montagné, Prosper (1977). The New Larousse Gastronomique. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. p. 70. ISBN 0-517-53137-2.
  6. Montagné, Prosper (1977). The New Larousse Gastronomique. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. p. 84. ISBN 0-517-53137-2.
  7. Montagné, Prosper (1977). The New Larousse Gastronomique. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. p. 88. ISBN 0-517-53137-2.
  8. Turner, Danielle. "Carryover Cooking". Cooking Clarified. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  9. 傅, 培梅 (2008), 培梅食譜, 1, 旗林文化, ISBN 978-986-6655-25-8
  10. Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2012). The Culinarian: a Kitchen Desk Reference. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. p. 137. ISBN 9780470554241.
  11. "Dutch Oven Recipes". The Iron Flame. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  12. "The Taste of Tet; It wouldn't be the New Year without kho, the ultimate Vietnamese comfort food", by Andrea Q. Nguyen
  13. Davidson, Alan (2006). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. p. 703. ISBN 0-19-280681-5.
  14. How to spatchcock that chicken Archived 2013-06-03 at the Wayback Machine, Knorr
  15. Raichlen, Steven (2011-05-10). "A Tandoor Oven Brings India's Heat to the Backyard". The New York Times.
  16. Raichlen, Steven (2011-05-10). "A Tandoori Oven brings India's heat to the backyard". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-05-09.
  17. Montagné, Prosper (1977). The New Larousse Gastronomique. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. p. 940. ISBN 0-517-53137-2.

Further reading
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